NEW YORK (AP) — Former President Donald Trump, under questioning about a lawsuit, insulted and threatened to sue a columnist who accused him of raping him at a department store in the 1990s, according to excerpts of his testimony unsealed in court Friday.
Portions of his October deposition in a lawsuit filed by columnist E. Jean Carroll were publicly released after a federal judge denied his lawyers’ request to keep it sealed.
“She said I did something to her that never happened. There was nothing. I don’t know anything about this nut,” he said, according to the transcript.
Excerpts reveal a contentious battle between Trump and Carroll’s attorney who questioned him.
The release of excerpts from the deposition came on the same day that federal judge Lewis A. Kaplan also denied a request by Trump’s lawyers to drop Carroll’s two defamation and rape lawsuits. An April trial is scheduled.
Trump said the meeting with Carroll in the mid-1990s at a luxury department store in Manhattan never happened.
In his day-long testimony, he repeatedly attacks Carroll’s portrayal of Trump as a thug.
Trump said he knew it wasn’t “politically correct” to say “she’s not my type” when he responded to the claims shortly after Carroll’s 2019 book was published, and the writer claimed she was attacked by Trump in a locker room after an accident. to meet him at a luxury department store in Manhattan in late 1995 or early 1996.
“But I’ll say it anyway,” he said. “She’s accusing me of rape, a woman I have no idea who she is. It came out of the blue. He’s accusing me of rape, the worst thing you can do, the worst accusation.”
He added: “And you also know that’s not true. You are also a political agent. You are a disgrace. But she’s accusing me and you of rape, and that never happened.”
Earlier in the day, Kaplan confirmed the lawsuits alleging rape and defamation and seeking unspecified damages from Carroll, saying they could proceed to trial because Trump’s claims were without merit.
“The fact that Mr. Trump denies Ms. Carroll’s allegations does not enter into the analysis at this stage of the case,” the Manhattan lawyer wrote. “What, if anything, actually happened must await further proceedings if the complaint survives this motion.”
Alina Habba, an attorney for Trump, said in a statement: “While we are disappointed by the court’s decision, we intend to immediately appeal the order and continue to advocate for our client’s constitutionally protected rights.”
In the ruling, Kaplan said the Adult Survivor’s Act is similar to the Child Victims Act, another New York state law that years later temporarily allowed victims of sexual assault when they were children to sue their perpetrators.
“Mr. Trump has offered no meritorious reason to reject the one-year recovery period in the ASA as unreasonable when the nearly identical two-year recovery period in the Child Victims Act has been accepted by all courts as reasonable to consider,” Kaplan wrote.
Lawyers for the former president asked a judge to throw out the lawsuit after Trump said the meeting at the luxury Manhattan department store never happened.
Trump said Carroll first publicly stated that he was generating book sales in a 2019 book.
Carroll was a longtime columnist for Elle magazine. She originally sued Trump for defamation after he mocked her claims that he sexually assaulted her in late 1995 or early 1996 after they met by chance at a department store and she agreed to help him pick out underwear for a friend.
Trump has repeatedly denied that the meeting took place, calling her accuser a “total fraud” and saying she was “not my type.”
“No pictures? No supervision? No video? No messages? No traders around??” Trump said in one of the various statements and interviews. “People should pay dearly for such false accusations.”
Carroll sued Trump over the rape in November, when the Adult Survivors Act took effect.
Roberta Kaplan, an attorney for Carroll who is not related to the judge, said in an email: “We are pleased, though not surprised, that Judge Kaplan denied Donald Trump’s motion to strike down and uphold the constitutionality of New York’s adult survivor statute. We look forward to the April trial. “
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